OLS-57900 Week 2 - Leadership Traits
Key Takeaway 1: Throughout the history of leadership research, there have been various views of assessing leadership. The Traits approach measures leadership based on personality traits. The major leadership traits are intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability (Northouse, 2019). These can be broken down into more granular measures that are used across various leadership assessments, such as the TTI Trimetrix Assessment.
Key Takeaway 2: Your leadership is an extension of the relationship with yourself (Anderson, 2023). Our consciousness operates either in our ego or in our authentic self, never both at the same time. Ego is ingrained into our subconscious as a stress response to provide protection. Our authentic self only comes out when we create a safe, and peaceful environment. As a human, I completely resonated with this. As a leader, it was good to be reminded that all poor leadership behaviors and habits are ego-driven (Anderson, 2023). We need to reduce the amount of emotionally-charged reactions in our day-to-day lives and get to a place where our authentic selves can respond strategically and with intention. To reach our authentic self and channel it consistently, we must focus on and improve our relationship with ourselves.
Key Takeaway 3: Confidence is a strong inner belief, trusting who you are, where you're going, and that you'll find a way to make things work (Anderson, 2023). It sits between arrogance and shyness and thrives when we operate in our authentic self. Without confidence you can't operate with authenticity and you can't make yourself vulnerable. Both traits (authenticity and vulnerability) are critical in establishing connection and cementing trust. To gain confidence, you must know who you are, what you stand for, and what your value is.
Exhibit 1: My TTI Trimetrix DNA Snapshot
Analysis: In business, my confidence is high in executing my day-to-day activities allowing me to operate in mostly in my authentic self. It translates in my TTI Trimetrix Assessment as high scores in leadership, conceptual thinking, coaching, and personal accountability. However, when pushed outside of my comfort zone I certainly feel my ego taking hold, typically in the form of shyness and at times, in the form of arrogance when reacting emotionally. In my personal life, I feel that I allow ego to take hold of my consciousness more than it should. It is overused because there are more unknowns and more external actors and influences in my personal life that I cannot control. I believe the overuse of ego in my personal life does impact how I function when pushed outside of my comfort zone in business. It is likely why resiliency is an area I need to further develop. As an aside: I'm surprised that team work and appreciation of others is so low as I typically work very well in a team environment and consistently show appreciation of others. These are blindspots for me that I will focus on as part of this course.
Application: To overcome ego, Anderson (2023) recommends using the ARC framework for Awareness, Response, Compassion. As a Lean Agilist, I am pretty good at breaking down a problem to understand the "heart of the issue" to better gain awareness. I'm also good at compassion for both myself and others, as I understand mistakes happen. I do find my compassion to have limits as I, truthfully, am more compassionate towards those whom I favor than those whom I may not be familiar with or have repeatedly demonstrated to me their inability to get the job done. Where I can improve in this framework is removing emotion so I can shift from reacting to responding with intention. This is an area where I can apply neuroplasticity techniques to rewire my brain to slow down and thinkg more strategically in times of high emotion and stress.
References
Anderson, R. M. (2023). Leadership Mindset 2.0. Columbia: Executive Joy! https://rmichaelanderson.com/leadership-mindset-2-0/
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice 8th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.